Dramatic moments

You know we are so fortunate with radio, particularly the non-commercial variety, and I just love the quirky Emma Ayres on Classic Breakfast.

One of the snippets they have been playing this week is various tracks of Maria Callas.

Now, I have mixed feelings about opera but listening to these snippets has been quite wonderful.

She obviously had such force of personality that what ever happened on stage was dominated by her. Some commentators and critics have said she used to sing out of tune!!! I sort of get this, though it seems an extraordinary thing to say about someone who is arguably the greatest Diva of all time. (see this interesting little discussion about her vocal decline on Wiki)

But it is observed that her tonal quality was so unique that it doesn't actually seem to have deterred people from declaring her to be the "greatest"

It has caused me to think about my own Great Opera Moments...but the list get longer and longer so I will curtail it...it includes:

• The Greatest Disappointment-this week it includes never having heard Callas, but it could equally well be never having heard Pavarotti
• The Most Amazing Year-I think this is right (at least in part) was 1980. Amazing for a wonderful production of Death in Venice by Benjamin Brittain at the Adelaide Festival, later in the year Joan Sutherland in Lucia di Lamermoor
• The Most Luxurious Experience seeing La traviata in the Vienna Opera House
• The Best Ever-Kiri Te Kanawa in Traviata at the Sydney Opera House
• The best ongoing-never fail to be amazed at the ongoing youth talent that abounds in this fair city...even the G& S society has become youth oriented and found a new life to its productions ...like the forthcoming Pirates

And so we could go on....what would you add?

Avast me hearties

News that the recent rescue of an American crew recently attacked by pirates has sparked retaliation (here) sends shivers up the spine.
Those of us who grew up with jolly swashbuckling pirates could be forgiven for thinking that they were really not to be taken seriously, and those of us who think, a la G&S, that "they are all noblemen who have gone wrong" are obviously seriously mistaken.
I also grew up in a town where a significant part of the English merchant fleet had been attacked by American pirates led by the infamous John Paul Jones , causing significant political and economic damage. This perhaps reminds us that pirates are not really a laughing matter.
The temptation? Ahh yes, the temptation will always be to go and blast the crap out of them....I suspect that most of us have no idea of the extent of the problem or of the logistics involved
But we must also recognise that part of these issues we are seeing erupting all over the place, where those who perceive they 'have not' are deciding to take matters into their own hands and demonstrating they are just as greedy and complicit as those they reckon have more, ....any way that long bloggish sentence was meant to convey that gross inequities in wealth will always fuel violence and aggression and , indeed, revolution. This is basic Marxism.
In a world where capitalism would appear to be, if not collapsing then, rethinking itself...we would be foolish to just dismiss all aspects of alternative theory out of hand. Marxism identifies a dynamic for violence and/or revolution which could become more evident as these tough times get worse.